Grammar that makes you cringe

[Cudzoziemiec]

Inger Andersen, the director of the UN Environment Programme, tweeted: “We have just gavelled the resolution paving the way for global action to #BeatPlasticPollution. The most important environmental deal since the Paris accord.”

I approve of the verbing of nouns – I also like medalling and podiuming (probably better as words than activities) – but know many here will cringe and probably make puns about it being UN-English.

[Rod Marton]

Inger Andersen, the director of the UN Environment Programme, tweeted: “We have just gavelled the resolution paving the way for global action to #BeatPlasticPollution. The most important environmental deal since the Paris accord.”

I approve of the verbing of nouns – I also like medalling and podiuming (probably better as words than activities) – but know many here will cringe and probably make puns about it being UN-English.

And I see that you have also created a new verb - to verb.

One of the useful features of English is that words are not clearly defined as nouns or verbs and it is easy to use one as the other - although it must be admitted that the results can grate sometimes. Much easier than German, where you have to add the suffix -ieren, or Russian, where you need the suffix -irovat' and some fiddly declensions.

[Cudzoziemiec]

And I see that you have also created a new verb - to verb.

I'm afraid I can't take the credit for that. Here's a fairly well known example, but I don't think it's even the original of this particular phrase, let alone using "verb" as a verb:
https://twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/1083802055146434560

In English, any noun can be verbed

[T42]

Inger Andersen, the director of the UN Environment Programme, tweeted: “We have just gavelled the resolution paving the way for global action to #BeatPlasticPollution. The most important environmental deal since the Paris accord.”

I approve of the verbing of nouns – I also like medalling and podiuming (probably better as words than activities) – but know many here will cringe and probably make puns about it being UN-English.

I don't see how anyone could be against it - well, not logically - when verbs such as pillory, iron, axe, boycott, bloody, bollix and stone have been part of the language since <then>.

That said, some of the more recent inventions such to podium are graceless, and when I see or hear them being used my immediate thought is "what an arsehole".

[Pingu]

Arseholing.

[Ham]

[Cudzoziemiec]

From Stephen and I's perspective

Perhaps no surprise that the speaker was an HR rep.

[SteveC]

From Stephen and I's perspective

Perhaps no surprise that the speaker was an HR rep.

John Masterchef Torode is always doing this, e.g. 'feed Greg and I'. Drives MrsC up the wall.

[Cudzoziemiec]

"Feed Greg and I" is so common as to be almost usual, but this is the first time I've heard "from I's".

[Nuncio]

The classic linguistic hypercorrrection. People bend over backward to avoid saying 'me'. Not something you'd find myself doing.

And it's 'Gregg' btw - 3G Gregg.

[hellymedic]

The classic linguistic hypercorrrection. People bend over backward to avoid saying 'me'. Not something you'd find myself doing.

And it's 'Gregg' btw - 3G Gregg.

 

[Cudzoziemiec]

It does make sense if you're a Rastafarian. Probably. At least I don't think I've heard "me and me" or "my and my" but I probably haven't spent enough time with Rastas.

[T42]

Some eejit cook on YouTube continually placing stuff into receptacles instead of in them.

[bhoot]

Like trains arriving into stations?

[T42]

Exactly: the to is superfluous.

[Wowbagger]

I just listened to a piece of Bach played very well on an interesting 11-string guitar by one Paulo Martelli. I found the chap on Wikipedia and was treated to the cringeworthy word "concertized".

I'm tempted to edit it to translate it into English.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulo_Martelli

[tonyh]

You might do something about "unusual non-standard" while you're there.

[Mr Larrington]

“Phenomenons”, TV's Symeon Brown?  Get in the cattle truck…

[T42]

Was greatly tickled in the middle of the night by considering the difference between a sacoche de selle and a sacoche de selles.

[Mr Larrington]

You’re going to have to enlighten me, coz Mr Google doesn’t know the difference.

[rafletcher]

You’re going to have to enlighten me, coz Mr Google doesn’t know the difference.

Saddle bag vs bag of shit?

[T42]

You’re going to have to enlighten me, coz Mr Google doesn’t know the difference.

Saddle bag vs bag of shit?

Zackly, selle being the polite way of saying turd in French.  Mind you, in English there are stools and stools.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Not exactly grammar but: we're used to companies using camel case such as iPhone or WeCare, but the latest trend seems to be running words together with only a single capital and no punctuation. For example Jobandtalent.

[T42]

I first ran across what's now called camel case back in the 90's, when it was supposedly invented by a Hungarian Microsoft programmer who would put the type of a variable in lower case and the name of it in upper, as in twatBoris. With a nod to Polish notation they called it Hungarian notation, which is how I knew it until now.  A couple of years after I saw it, companies began running their names together, but since e.g. the Harper bit of Harper Collins got p'ed off at being minuscule so it became HarperCollins.

---o0o---

Anyway, wandering the fetid feeds of Netflux just now I saw a film hight Pentaverate in their Upcoming Repulsions backwater. Had a gander at the trailer: apparently it's about a secret society formed by five sages in the distant past.  Illiterate sods these producers are: if it's 5 blokes (and it is) then it should be Pentavirate and since vir is Latin it should then be Quintavirate.  Honestly, what do they teach them in school these days? What's that? How to strip down and reassemble an AR-15? One is not surprised. And one will not be watching. No bloody wonder they're losing members by the boatload.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Might it not be ver from veritas or verum? I'm not going to attempt to decline those cos I aint Boris. Your quint v pent point still stands of course.